


power of touch

by teasockschocolate



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Annabeth needs a hug, F/M, Growing Up, Touch-Starved, annabeth centric, just a lot of words, protect this girl at all costs, touch averse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 20:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17946308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teasockschocolate/pseuds/teasockschocolate
Summary: "Annabeth couldn’t remember getting any consistent physical affection in her life."ortouch starved/averse annabeth





	power of touch

**Author's Note:**

> "too often we underestimate the power of a touch" - leo buscaglia

Annabeth couldn’t remember getting any consistent physical affection in her life. Her father hadn’t been cold necessarily, just awkward. She may get a pat on the head when she did well on an assignment in school, or a one-armed hug when the other girls made fun of her for now having a real mother. He didn’t have a problem touching her brothers. Well, that sounded weird, but he’d swing them in the air and kiss their cheeks and hold them close to his chest when they’d cry. Obviously, she couldn’t remember being a baby herself but she was sure her dad had never been that way with her. She wasn’t allowed to touch the babies. Not explicitly, but her stepmother would always whisk them off in another direction on the rare occasion they’d crawl in Annabeth’s direction. She didn’t think her stepmother had ever touched her once.

When she ran away and found Luke and Thalia she felt like she was a part of the freaking Brady Bunch or something. It was bizarre – to go from being avoided like the plague to having her hair tousled and her general presence wanted. She wasn’t exactly touch-averse before then, but it was hard to get used to. Of course, as soon as she warmed up to it, it was over. Thalia had been the more physically affectionate – leaning her elbow atop Annabeth’s head to pretend she was using her as an armrest or pulling her into her lap on cold nights. Luke would give her piggy-back rides and hugs but being a twelve-year-old boy, physical affection wasn’t exactly a strong suit. Still, once Thalia was gone, he was the only one who’d get that close to her and the only one she really let.

Contact made her nervous. It required letting her guard down –– something she never wanted to do. When someone got close to her she’d feel her shoulders tense and her muscles twitch for her knife or to form a fist. Part of it just came with being a half-blood. You had to always be ready for battle. You were never truly safe. But other half-bloods didn’t seem to have a problem with slinging arms around each other and huddling up around the campfire. Annabeth and Luke sat away from everyone else at the fires. Sometimes he would put his arm around her, but that was mostly to remind himself she was here. That he wasn’t totally alone. She leaned into his chest when he did so for the same reason.

People generally kept their distance from Annabeth. When she started camp she felt like a wildcat –– untamed and feral. She couldn’t verbalize how it felt to lose Thalia –– to feel like she had a family for the first time in her life and to have it ripped apart before her very eyes. Even if she could, she had no one to talk with. She didn’t have any friends besides Luke and he didn’t like to talk about it. So instead she threw herself into training and learned everything she could about the gods, knife-fighting, monsters. Sometimes she’d go up to Thalia’s tree and sit on the roots. She’d tell the tree/Thalia about what she was learning and how overwhelming it all was and how much she missed her. (Annabeth didn’t realize until years later when she had the real Thalia back just how pathetic it must’ve looked to see the new feral seven-year-old go talk to her dead friend. No wonder everyone had steered clear for a while).

The first time Chiron laid a hand on her shoulder when she’d sat on the Big House steps reading and hadn’t heard the dinner bell, she had jumped up like she’d been electrocuted. She’d been angry then for him startling her, but she realized later that no one else jumped when someone tapped their shoulder. So she tried to focus on getting better at it. By being the youngest camper by far she already stuck out as being different and she didn’t need any more reasons for her to be looked at as weak. Day by day, she healed a little bit. She let Grover hug her for longer and let herself hug him back. Luke was getting better too, and now he’d sometimes swing her over his shoulder or give her piggy-back rides around Camp like he’d done when he’d been on the run. Little by little she started to get put together. And she liked to think she was helping him do the same. 

It wasn’t much; Annabeth didn’t become the typical baby of the group. She didn’t go up hugging people or feel the urge to be close like some people seemed to, but she didn’t reject it anymore. She let people give her a playful shove and she’d shove back. She didn’t like anyone other than Luke touch her hair though. He and Thalia used to tug her curls when they teased her. But as the years past she felt him slipping away a little bit every day. He didn’t smile as much. He didn’t ruffle her hair anymore. Annabeth didn’t realize how much she’d come to like that stupid physical contact until it was gone. And then she didn’t realize how much she’d come to depend on him until he was gone.

She didn’t remember getting much touch once Luke was gone. He’d been more or less the leader of Camp and she guessed people had only really interacted with her much when Luke was around. Probably smart, since that’d been when she was the least on guard. It felt like a stupid thing to think about –– how much basic touch she got. She’d read once that scientifically people need at least four hugs a day. And she still lived in a small cabin with over a dozen siblings so it’s not like she never got a hug or a pat, it was just different. She wasn’t really close with them so they didn’t interact often. And her best friend was Percy so gods knew he was far too awkward to initiate any kind of contact. Not that she wanted him to.

Touch craving seemed a bit extreme. It made her feel stupidly desperate; like she was some writhing horny teenager. She neverr really realized how much she wanted it until she got it. Chiron would put a hand on her shoulder (she didn’t freak out now, six years later) and she’d vaguely realize no one had touched her in two days, or Grover would hug her and she wouldn’t want to let go. But that wasn’t her. Annabeth was tough and Annabeth was strong and Annabeth didn’t need anybody so she’d cut it short and pretend she didn’t just really want a hug. And then she hugged Percy for the first time for real, not some one-armed awkward thing, and she’d really never wanted to let go. It was really good that Malcolm had come in when he did or she didn’t know if she’d have been able to end it.

One night in the Labyrinth she kept watch and noticed the inches between Percy and Rachel. she wondered if he’d hugged ever her. The little rich girl probably wouldn’t have any walls to break down or stupid ache to be loved. Annabeth fed the fire a little too harshly.

As Luke died, two fingers found a long curl that had broken out of her ponytail. He tugged it weakly, a watery smile and a broken promise on his face. She’d replay that moment, the last time she saw the boy that’d taken her under his wing, many times.

Percy had needed encouragement for when it was okay to touch her. For weeks, Annabeth made every first move. Handholding and kisses were painfully awkward but still left her heart racing and her head a little dizzy. Prior to dating, she’d held Percy’s hand exactly twice (in the Underworld and in the Labyrinth) and both had been to remind herself that someone was there with her. He’d been a lifeline then and she felt a little stupid how much better it made her feel now when he’d do something as simple as hold her hand. Every time he touched her she felt her walls break down a little bit more. It turned out that Percy Jackson as a best friend was very different than Percy Jackson as a boyfriend. Best Friend Percy would keep a significant berth around her while Boyfriend Percy was maybe the most clingy people ever. He’d drop his head to her shoulder when he was bored and she was reading, he’d sling an arm around her shoulder at the campfires, he’d lightly stretch out her curls to watch it bounce back into place. And she kind of loved it all. (They were getting good at kissing too)

They’d just been starting to get the hang of the whole thing of being together when Hera happened and their lives were turned upside down again.

If Annabeth had thought she missed contact when Luke had left, it was absolutely nothing compared to this. Besides the pain that came when the one person in the world she knew that she loved (Loved, gods, she’d never told him) she felt herself physically aching to have someone to hug her or just be close and she was comfortable. She felt so goddamn weak when she’d sneak into his cabin on especially hard nights and would hug his pillow, breathing in the scent and pretending he was still with her. She felt worse when the smell started to fade and become more like her than him.

There was a small part of her that was glad to see that he missed being close to her as much as she had him, when he grabbed her hand and didn’t let go unless absolutely necessary for a good part of their time on the Argo II. He’d gotten a lot bolder when it came to initiating contact now. She was sure they looked pretty clingy (twelve-year-old Annabeth would have gagged) but she was well past caring. She’d lived in a world where there wasn’t a Percy there to hug and she had no desire to go back.

**Author's Note:**

> lets be friends on tumblr! https://www.tumblr.com/blog/teasockschocolate
> 
> send a message/prompt :)))


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